Fidelity National Completes Metavante Merger

Fidelity National Information Services completed its merger with Metavante and has launched the new, larger firm into a new brand.

The company announced it will do business as FIS, though legally remain Fidelity National Information Services.

"Many people already refer to us in the shorthand term FIS," explained Gary Norcross, chief operating officer at Fidelity National who will take on a similar position with the new company. "We felt through the years that there had already been enough confusion over our name."

Under terms of the merger agreement, FIS acquired all of the outstanding shares of Metavante common stock with Metavante shareholders received 1.35 shares of FIS common stock for each share of Metavante common stock held.

FIS is now the largest provider of payments, core processing and online bill payments to credit unions with over 3000 credit unions using at least on of the company's suite of services.

"With the completion of this strategic and transformative transaction, FIS has now enhanced its ability to deliver products and services, execute on a client cross-sales business model, and continue to grow globally," said Frank Martire, FIS president/CEO. "We will continue to make business and product investments and we will strategically integrate our products, where it makes sense to do in order to deliver high-value solutions to our clients and prospects."

"The new FIS will continue to serve individual market segments, including community banking and credit unions," Norcross said.

Norcross and Martire said the long process of having the merger vetted by the U.S. Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission had turned out to have been an a benefit, giving the new company plenty of time to see where they overlap and how the two corporate cultures could better work together. The executives said there was not much overlap between the two companies product offerings and that there would not likely be many layoffs as a result of the merger. But Metavante will close its headquarters in Milwaukee, and many of the staff will join the FIS staff in Jacksonville, Fla.